Over the past 25 years, research and practical experience have supported investments in strategies to encourage all students to behave according to agreed-upon expectations. In collaboration with expert panelists, the What Works Clearinghouse™ (WWC) distilled that research into practical recommendations for elementary educators. The…

Students succeed in school environments that support them in demonstrating prosocial and positive behavior. Student behaviors that disrupt or distract from classroom instruction can result in fewer learning opportunities for students and decreased likelihood of academic success. Behavioral interventions can help students engage in positive…

Young students starting school for the first time (e.g., kindergarteners) often benefit from more than typical intensity of behavioral support. Learning new social expectations, routines, and interaction patterns can be daunting. This is an important concern for schools implementing positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS). Learning a…

Let's face it--teaching can be stressful. In this generation of Common Core Standards and highstakes testing, educators are often left without the time to plan positive behavioral supports or the sanity to cultivate compassionate relationships with their students. Even though they understand the critical relationship between behavior and…

In this article, we describe a systematic approach to designing, implementing, and evaluating functional assessment-based interventions developed by Umbreit, Ferro, Liaupsin, and Lane (2007), implemented in a job-share classroom with two first-grade students. One student was at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) according to…

After going through Assertive Discipline training, a student teacher entered her new first-grade class. The mentor classroom teacher did not use Assertive Discipline, but gave permission for the student teacher to use this management system. After teaching students her rules, rewards, and negative consequences--and appropriately implementing…

School refusal behavior is defined as any child-motivated refusal to attend classes and/or difficulty remaining in classes for an entire day. Although many researchers have focused on older children and adolescents in their samples, few have specifically focused on young children aged 5-9 years (i.e., kindergarten to third grade). In this article,…